Recollections
by markmark261
Summary: Needless sequel to Collections.


Disclaimer: All characters in this story are copyright their respective owners.

Author's Note: The final part of this story is inspired by Knightm's far, far superior "Vertex" story (which can be found under my Favorite Stories).****

Recollections

Perry White suddenly started laughing. Just imagine, him a newspaperman for all of these years, being taken in by Lana Lang of all people. "You really had me going there for a moment, Ms. Lang. Clark Kent is Superman - wow, the number of times Lois used to come out with that."

On the balcony Clark, his head still turned away from Lex for fear that he'd give in to the temptation to fry him on the spot, took off his glasses and pulled open his shirt. The next instant he was gone.

Lana Lang stopped one of the waiters and was helping herself to another drink, when Lex suddenly appeared at her side. "So, my dear, are you keeping the staff of The Daily Planet entertained?"

"I've only just begun," she replied. "I've just been telling them that Clark Kent's Superman."

"That must be the biggest urban myth surrounding Superman," butted in Jimmy. "The number of times poor Clark's had to disprove it."

Lex nodded. "Don't talk to me about urban myths. You should hear what they say about my family. Someone should write a story about it."

"Just so happens I've got Jimmy here working on one," announced Perry proudly, wrapping his arm around the young reporter. "Isn't that right, Jimmy?"

"Y-yes, Chief," he replied. "You should hear the one Clark told me."

"Where is Clark by the way?" asked Lana.

"Oh, I saw him a moment ago," explained Lex. "He was looking for some old friends."

High in the night sky, Superman looked down on, and through, Metropolis. Lex had tried to hide the real Lana in a lead-lined cryogenic chamber, but, with Superman's X-ray vision working at full power, the only parts of Metropolis he could see at the moment were those made of lead, which found locating the chamber ridiculously easy - too easy.

Lois wasn't overly concerned about Clark's absence. He was probably just doing his other job and, although it could be dangerous, he'd always made it back to her in the past, even if he'd died along the way. "Don't worry about Clark. He's sure to be back soon."

"He's certainly changed since I knew him in Smallville," laughed Lana. "Who would have thought that that naïve farm boy would become a top reporter? What a transformation."

Superman entered the cryogenic chamber, expecting to find the real Lana and Chloe there, but only found one person's body - Clark Kent's. As he staggered back from it, struggling to comprehend what he was seeing, the lead lined walls suddenly fell away to reveal the layer of synthetic kryptonite that had been carefully placed between the cryogenic chamber's inner and outer lead walls. Overcome by the deadly radiation Superman fell to the ground in pain, before finally lapsing into unconsciousness.

Lana Lang looked at her watch. "Is that the time?"

"Something more important to do?" asked Lois snidely.

"Yeah, I've got to go and torture Metropolis," she replied, and then walked out, leaving Lex standing there on his own with the Planet reporters.

"What did she mean by that?" asked Lois.

Lex wondered whether Lois would really want to hear the answer, but decided he better explain anyway. "Hey, if you can call him Smallville …"

* * *

"Wake up, Mister Scarecrow. We've got some issues to resolve." 

Superman heard Lana's voice, and felt pain running through his body, and an aching in his arms. Slowly he opened his eyes and, in the darkness, he saw that he was in a cornfield. Looking down he saw a green glow emanating from just below his neck and, beyond that, Lana Lang on the ground, dressed in black, looking up at him. In her hands was his Superman outfit. She stared up at him, a smile on her face.

"Talk about major déjà. Tied to a cross in a cornfield in Smallville, a kryptonite necklace hanging round your neck."

"Lana …"

"Don't try to talk, Clark. It won't help. Besides this is where I get to talk to you without you rushing off in this stupid outfit." She looked down at the outfit and, seeing the S symbol, traced along it with her index finger. "I remember when I first saw this symbol - it was in Lois' Daily Planet story. It was then that I realized what your big secret was - that you were an alien and your planet had killed my parents." She bowed her head (she wasn't going to let Clark see her tears) and threw the outfit to the ground. "S - the mark of sorrow."

"But …" began Clark, struggling to understand, struggling to talk, as the emerald radiation continued to take its toll.

Lana wiped the tears away from her eyes, and looked back up at Clark incredulously. "What - you actually believed Lex's Bizarro Lana story? I can't tell you how much that disappoints me, Clark. I'm not a clone, any more than you are. That Clark you found in the cryogenic chamber was just a fake … then again, so was the Clark I knew in Smallville."

Clark looked down at Lana and saw the hate in her eyes as she continued. "So, Clark, you've probably got an idea why I've brought you here. Me and Lex have formed some sort of Superman Revenge Squad."

"Lex … he told you …" groaned Clark.

"What, you think he told me you were Superman? You honestly thought that stupid kiss curl was sufficient disguise? What sort of idiot do you take me for?"

Clark was silent, as Lana regained her composure. "Anyway, none of that matters now. The thing that's important, and the thing that you've got to understand, is that I can kill you at any time."

"Lex … making … you …"

"Oh, please, Clark. You think Lex is behind this, pulling the strings. No, behind every bad boy, there's a bad girl, This was all my idea. Sure the time travel technology was Lex's … did I tell you that we're back in October 1989 - the month my life ended, the month yours will too." Lana smiled. "Tomorrow a meteor will be landing on this spot."

Lana looked at Clark, waiting for a reaction, any reaction, but he just hung there … silent … unmoving, except for his shivering.

"I was going to torture you, too," continued Lana, "but that would have just been gilding the lily."

There was still no reaction from Clark.

"Oh, Clark, you're no fun anymore, just shivering and dying there like that. Maybe I should move that kryptonite necklace away from you for a while, give you a chance to think straight."

And with that Lana suddenly started to rise from the ground, towards Clark. She displayed a ring on her finger to Clark by way of explanation. "This is a … erm … levitation device Lexcorp have come up with - see their L logo. But I can see the last thing you're interested in is technology."

Lana put her hands behind Clark's neck and carefully unfastened the necklace, before hovering away to a more bearable distance. "Actually, Clark, I've not been entirely honest with you. Even Lex can't pull off time travel and we're not stuck in the past, well no more so than Smallville usually is, and I've not come here to kill you … although I promise you I could, at any time. I'm sorry for my minutes of dishonesty, and hopefully you're equally sorry for your years of dishonesty, but that's not important now."

Clark started to open his mouth, and suddenly found Lana's finger on his lips, the kryptonite held as far away from him as she could with her other hand. "Please, Clark, don't speak. Just let me say what I want to say and then I'll be out of your life for good."

Clark nodded.

"I told you my world ended in October 1989, but, of course, it didn't. Life still went on. But that didn't stop me thinking about that day. While other kids were playing, I was sat in a corner thinking my deep thoughts, thinking about life and death. Thinking about destiny, and knowing that whatever I did my life was going to end the same way … with death. I saw others around me working hard, worrying about things, hiding their feelings, keeping secrets, struggling to be popular, but, by and large, none of that was for me … after all, what difference would it make. Nothing mattered."

"Then you came along, Clark. It took a while admittedly, but life suddenly seemed to have possibilities again. Finally I'd found someone who'd give my life meaning. I wanted to tell you - usually I wore my heart on my sleeve - but for once I was afraid. Then one night I made my way to your farm, only to see you and Lois come out of your loft. She kissed you goodbye and walked away, and you walked back to the loft." Lana paused, and took a deep breath, feeling the tears welling up inside her. "As you walked back to the loft I knew that you'd end up with Lois. After all, I'd never seen anybody walking on air before. That was the second day in my life that my world had ended."

"And then you went to Metropolis and became famous. All of those powers and you waste them fighting criminals and catching people stupid enough to fall from tall buildings - I thought I was an under-achiever. I'm sorry, Clark, but I'm only saying this because I care about you. Sure I hate you because you didn't tell me your secret - our parents got killed by the same planet and we've never even discussed it - but I still love you."

Clark smiled, one of those smiles that made Lana want to stop talking, but she carried on.

"But I hate Superman. What sort of legacy are you leaving the world? Sure you save the planet from interplanetary invaders, but it never got attacked until you showed up. Say what you like about Lex, but the technological advances he's come up with will make the future a better place. And then there's the danger involved - did I mention I could kill you at any time? Life's precious, trust me, and, with your possible longevity, it should be even more so, but this lifestyle of yours - rushing into deathtraps, one crisis after another - it can't go on indefinitely. The bad guys can lose as many times as they want, but you just have to lose once (well, twice, if you'll insist on coming back from the dead). I don't know if you're doing it subconsciously, guilty because the rest of your race died and you didn't, but it's not a good idea. Of course Lois doesn't care what happens to Superman - all she cares about is column inches - no double entendre intended."

Clark was silent, as, having attacked his Superman identity, Lana then launched into a tirade on his Clark Kent persona. "And if Superman's an under-achiever, the shadow of Clark Kent you've become is even worse. Living a lie, walking when you can fly …"

Lana stopped, and then descended to the ground. "Sorry, Clark, I got a bit carried away. I just want you to be happy, really I do. Kind of tragic that it took these kinds of measures to tell you. Just didn't want there to be any more secrets between us. Think about what I've said. Please."

And with that Lana turned away and started her long painful walk out of Clark Kent's life.

"Wait, Lana," shouted Clark, with all the effort he could manage. "There's something … something you need to know."

Lana just kept walking. She'd said what she was going to say and nothing Clark could say would make her turn around.

"Your parents' death … it wasn't an accident."

Lana stopped dead in her tracks as Clark continued. "It was Lex Luthor."

Lana turned around, her face pale. "Clark, if this is a joke…"

"It's no joke," said Clark, looking directly at her. "Just listen to me. I'm about to tell you something that only Lex and I know - the reason for our rift. You didn't really think it was because I destroyed his comic collection or gave his Warrior Angel fanfic a bad review, did you?"

A stunned Lana didn't reply, so Clark continued.

"This will sound fantastic but bear with me." Clark took a deep breath and then began his tale. "Once upon the time the world was a very different place. No meteors hit Smallville, Lex just lost his hair naturally and the girl called Lana Lang looked nothing like you. Of course some things were the same - Lex's hatred of Superman for one. A hatred that survived beyond the grave. Using an idea from an old TV series Quantum Leap, Lex managed to devise a way, upon dying, to transfer his mind back in time. Revenge would be his."

"Lex told you this?" asked Lana incredulously.

Clark just continued with his story. "Of course Lex couldn't have foreseen what would happen, as, straight after dying, he suddenly found himself staring into a mirror at Clark Kent's face. He tried to laugh at the irony of it all, here he was trapped in his greatest enemy, but nothing happened. His mind hadn't supplanted the original mind as planned, it was just co-inhabiting the brain. And then, much to his surprise the body started moving and looked out of a window. And there in the night sky he saw the moons, ever so close."

"Oh boy," murmured Lana.

"Indeed," responded Clark. "Lex had leapt into Superman's father Jor-El. Of course, at first he was just a passenger, trapped with his own thoughts and memories, but as time wore on he managed to finally, subconsciously, have some influence over Jor-El. It was thanks to Lex's influence that Jor-El had baby Kal-El's spaceship use its tractor beam to gather fragments of Krypton around it to convert to a power source. Jor-El didn't realize that the fragments would be deadly to Kal-El, but Lex did (although he didn't at that point realize about the additional mutagenic chemicals that would be generated as the result of the matter/energy conversion process he helped design). Anyway, thanks to Lex, Kal-El's spaceship arrived with deadly meteor rocks in its wake, but by that time Jor-El had been killed by Krypton's destruction and Lex had leapt into somebody else's mind."

"And one of those rocks killed my parents."

"Not in that history, no," explained Clark. "But Lex kept leaping around, constantly living other people's lives, once even leaping into a laboratory mouse, but, with all of those people, affecting them in hundreds of miniscule ways. One of them tapped into Lex's memories and came up with a comic book character called Warrior Angel. Another called Henry Small paid a little bit more attention to a woman called Laura Lang than he otherwise might have. And through it all, history kept changing a bit at a time."

"And you believed Lex when he told you this?" asked Lana disbelievingly.

"He didn't tell me," replied Clark with a smile. "I told him. I told him how that other Lex Luthor's mind finally turned up leaping into mine. How our two minds together managed to overcome the red kryptonite that would have previously caused me some bizarre physical transformation, but how now it unleashed Lex's personality instead. How, slowly ever so slowly, his mind had become integrated with mine, so I'd become my own worst enemy. And finally I told him how I was going to take over the world."

Lana took the kryptonite necklace she'd placed round her neck and held it towards him. "So why haven't you taken over the world yet?"

"I'm biding my time, doing this silly Clark Kent/Superman thing. Waiting for Batman, the Justice League or anybody else who could oppose me to die off. Besides, there are other ways to conquer than with just brute force. I've got the Daily Planet constantly churning out my pro-Superman propaganda - the world will ask me to take it over eventually. Remember, time is not an issue for me - I'm the Man of Tomorrow, and tomorrow belongs to me. In the meantime I was hoping that you and I could get back together."

"You've got to be joking," exclaimed Lana.

"No, I love you, Lana Lang. It was me, Lex, who always loved you. I loved you when I was Whitney, but when you were losing interest I managed to get him killed as quickly as possible, so I could leap to somebody more of your liking. You wouldn't believe the number of times I managed to get Clark to spy on you through that telescope of his. And when I found out I was stuck in your father's body it all got too weird so I timed it just right so I'd be there when that meteor struck."

Lana fell to her knees, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "Why do I always attract the freaks?" she asked herself. And then she looked up at Clark, smiling at her question, and realized that Lex had been in those freaks as well. "There's no way you're getting anywhere near me, Clark or Lex or whoever you are," she said defiantly, as she got back to her feet.

"Actually," he replied, "I figure that I'll be leaping into you anyway. Surely you can feel me in the back of your mind. Surely that _So what are you? Man or Superman?_ comment couldn't have just been an accident."

"I should kill you," she screamed, marching over to him and placing the necklace in front of his face.

"Kill Superman? That's all I've ever wanted," laughed Clark. "The Clark part of me's got no taste - wants to stick with Lois. Let me tell you something - this dual identity lark's harder than it looks. Besides, dying's just an adventure to me - who knows what I'll get to do next. Maybe I'll end up in Jonathan … I could really mess with Clark's head then … not to mention the fun I'd have with Martha."

Lana backed away from Clark, disgusted by the smile on his face. "I'll tell the world about you."

"No point, I've already told Jimmy all about it. It'll be being published as an urban myth any time now. Besides, now that I've told you my secret I'll have to kill you. Just like I did with Chloe."

"But she's …"

"Oh, that's just an automaton I built to take her place. The number of robot builders I've leapt into - Magnus, Ivo, Morrow, Caulder - and my creation surpasses any of theirs."

"So, how did she find out?" asked Lana, playing for time, while she tried to work out what to do next.

"Lex (or at least that pale imitation of me that uses my name) told her. I told him not to tell anybody. He even showed her the pitiful attempts he'd been working on to duplicate my time travel experiments. Of course I destroyed them, along with Chloe. Then there were the others he told, but I dealt with them quickly. Left him no Hope, showed him no Mercy. Of course every so often he tells Lois, when she asks him the reason for the rift, but she knows she can't hide from me, so she just comes back and I use my super-hypnosis on her and she's back to living the illusion."

Lana stood there, speechless, staring at Clark.

"So, Lana, are you going to kill me now? After all, you did promise."

* * *

As Lex Luthor's limousine made its way through the packed streets of Metropolis, Lex's eyes were not on the black-clad population walking the streets, but rather on the screen in front of him, displaying Lana and Clark through his concealed cameras. He was hoping that Superman would reveal his true nature to Lana, hoping that Lana would have the guts to finish off his other self. 

Still, even if she didn't, he'd still be there, continuing his fight against Superman. He was Earth's last hope and he'd find a way to defeat the Man of Steel one day.

A smile came unbidden to Lex's face, for despite what Superman thought, Lex wasn't alone in the fight. Chloe Sullivan might have died at Superman's hands that terrible day but she'd managed to test out that thought transference equipment Lex had been working on in the process. Now Chloe Sullivan was always there in the back of Lex's mind, making him smile.

If not for her, he wouldn't need Lana to do his dirty work. He could have killed Superman in cold blood with no remorse countless times over, but now he couldn't, and it was all Chloe Sullivan's fault.

She made him a better person.

THE END


End file.
